homosexuality

homosexuality,

a term created by 19th cent. theorists to describe a sexual and emotional interest in members of one's own sex. Today a person is often said to have a homosexual or a heterosexual orientation, a description intended to defuse some of the long-standing sentiment among many Westerners that homosexuality is immoral or pathological. Homosexual practices are not afforded any special moral or psychological significance in many other cultures. A survey of 190 societies around the world (1951) reported that homosexual practices were considered acceptable behavior in approximately 70% of them.

The description of homosexuality as an orientation also suggests, as some contemporary theorists have argued, that the boundaries between "homosexual" and "heterosexual" are not necessarily rigid. Some studies have indicated that most individuals have some erotic interest in both sexes, whether overt or not. The open expression of interest in both sexes is known as bisexuality. Transsexuals are distinguished from homosexuals by the feeling that they are really members of the opposite sex. Male and female homosexuals are now commonly known as gays and lesbians, respectively.

Theories of Homosexuality

Psychiatric theories of homosexuality have included the following: that homosexuality is a regression to the earliest (oral) stage of development; that most families of homosexuals are characterized by an overprotective mother and an absent father; or that homosexuals fear engulfment by a dominant mother in the pre-Oedipal phase. Some authorities have suggested that homosexuality may be an expression of nonsexual problems, such as fear of adult responsibility, or may be triggered by various experiences, such as having sexual relationships with members of one's own sex at an early age that prove to be very satisfying. Arguments regarding the roots of lesbianism include disappointing heterosexual love experience, a father who displays distaste for men who express interest in his daughter, and memories of abusive relationships with men.

Many of these theories have been discredited in recent years, particularly by those who cite biological causation. Some researchers have contended that a disruption in the hormonal processes of the mother while she is pregnant may be one explanation. Simon Levay, a neurobiologist at the Salk Institute, has suggested that homosexuality may be related to brain functioning, as part of the hypothalamus in homosexual men is about a quarter to half the size it is in heterosexual men. Subsequent studies have shown that homosexual men react to certain substances believed to be human pheromonespheromones,any of a variety of substances, secreted by many animal species, that alter the behavior of individuals of the same species. Sex attractant pheromones, secreted by a male or female to attract the opposite sex, are widespread among insects......Click the link for more information. differently from heterosexual men. Several studies have pointed to a genetic predisposition governed by one or more genes on the X chromosome.

Other recent studies, while not directly supporting biological explanations for homosexuality, suggest that it may be a predisposition that can be detected at an early age among children who do not appear to have traditional gender identification. Whether it can be easily detected or not, most theorists agree that homosexual orientation tends to arise at an early age. Substantially fewer studies of homosexuality have been performed among lesbians, perhaps because of the greater stigma which is often attached to male homosexuality in many Western cultures.

The American Psychiatric Association no longer considers homosexuality a disorder, unless sexual orientation becomes an object of distress for the individual. In such cases, the individual—referred to by psychologists as ego-dystonic—may choose to seek psychiatric treatment. Also, beginning in the late 20th cent., biologists more openly examined and discussed the occurrence of homosexual behaviors among animals, which has been documented in several hundred species. Such behaviors, which may include courtship, sexual contact, bond formation, and the rearing of young, are found both in wild and captive animals. Many gay-rights activists have criticized the various theories which try to "explain" homosexuality, particularly those that treat it as an illness in need of treatment.

The Gay-Rights Movement

In the United States today, the law's approach to homosexual acts has varied from state to state: In most states, unharmful private sexual acts of any kind between consenting adults were by the late 20th cent. considered to be outside the province of legal authority. The Supreme Court upheld state laws prohibiting homosexual conduct in 1986, and gay activists subsequently focused their efforts on overturning antisodomy laws in those states that retained them; in most, the laws applied also to heterosexuals but were seen as likely to be used chiefly against homosexuals. By 2003, when the Supreme Court reversed its 1986 decision and voided all antisodomy laws, 13 states still had such laws. In recent years, gays and lesbians have struggled to gain rights accorded other Americans as well as public acceptance, but the Judaeo-Christian tradition's condemnation of homosexuality as immoral has made such goals as acceptance of same-sex marriagemarriage,socially sanctioned union that reproduces the family. In all societies the choice of partners is generally guided by rules of exogamy (the obligation to marry outside a group); some societies also have rules of endogamy (the obligation to marry within a group)......Click the link for more information. and adoptionadoption,act by which the legal relation of parent and child is created. Adoption was recognized by Roman law but not by common law. Statutes first introduced adoption into U.S. law in the mid-19th cent......Click the link for more information. by gays elusive. The Clinton administration's much discussed "don't ask, don't tell" policy, announced as a way to allow gays in the military to serve without fear of discharge or other penalty as long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation, appears to have done little to change the precarious status of gay soldiers.

The outbreak in the early 1980s of AIDSAIDSor acquired immunodeficiency syndrome,fatal disease caused by a rapidly mutating retrovirus that attacks the immune system and leaves the victim vulnerable to infections, malignancies, and neurological disorders. It was first recognized as a disease in 1981......Click the link for more information. (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), which initially came to public notice as occurring among male homosexuals in the United States, galvanized the American gay community and brought support also from the wider community for recognition of the menace posed by AIDS, for increased funding for AIDS research, for wider access to information regarding safe sexual practices, and even, to some degree, for legal recognition of same-sex couples. But AIDS, even as it appeared in the nonhomosexual population (e.g., hemophiliacs), also sparked moralistic reactions; some felt, for example, that it represented a form of judgment on homosexuality.

See also gay-rights movementgay-rights movement,organized efforts to end the criminalization of homosexuality and protect the civil rights of homosexuals. While there was some organized activity on behalf of the rights of homosexuals from the mid-19th through the first half of the 20th cent......Click the link for more information..

homosexuality

the desire for sexual relationships with persons of the same biological sex. Usually, however, the term is used to describe social relationships between men, while LESBIANISM is used to denote such relationships between women.

A distinction needs to be made between homosexual behaviour, found in most known societies, and homosexuality as a particular role around which individuals construct identities, and communities or subcultures are formed. Weeks (1977) points out that the term ‘homosexual’was first introduced into the English language in the 19th-century and that it was during this period that the social and historical factors involved in the development of homosexuality as a specific role occurred. The criminalization of male homosexuality in England and Wales in 1885 was an important part of this process. Moreover, the medical and psychiatric professions pathologized homosexuality, establishing it as a sickness open to their ‘expert’ intervention, and thus successfully medicalizing an area of social DEVIANCE. Homosexuality remained on the World Health Organization's list of pathologies until the 1970s.

According to Mort (1980), the legal reforms in England and Wales (1967) acted as an important catalyst for the emergence and radicalization of ‘gay politics’. Alongside FEMINISM, gay liberation movements challenged the essentialism of 19th-century sexology, and the medicalization of homosexuality, stressing the political and social dimensions of sexuality. Counter-ideologies were developed to challenge the stigmatization, discrimination and oppression encountered by lesbians and gay men. The term ‘gay’ was adopted, particularly by homosexual men, to challenge the negative labels attached to homosexuality by mainstream culture. Within the newly emergent and visible lesbian and gay subcultures, human sexuality has come to be seen as a combination of social forces, personal choice and sexual politics. The emphasis on choice was particularly evident in political lesbianism, which stressed woman identification as a political strategy against patriarchal relations. The implicit desexualization of lesbianism found in political lesbianism has highlighted divisions of an ideological nature within the lesbian community, and criticisms of sexist practices within gay male culture by lesbian feminists have given rise to the demand that the oppression of lesbians be theorized differently from that of gay men.

Kitzinger (1987) has challenged both the essentialist arguments and those which regard homosexuality as a matter of individual preference or political choice. In doing so, she has placed a renewed emphasis on social constructionism.

Whilst the 1960s and 70s may be regarded as a period of relative radicalism in Western societies for both lesbians and gay men, the socioeconomic conditions of the 1980s have engendered a moral backlash, exemplified by the growth of the New Right. and a series of MORAL PANICS over AIDS, lesbian motherhood and positive images of homosexuality. Sec also COMING OUT, PINK ECONOMY.

Homosexuality

a sexual perversion consisting in an unnatural attraction toward individuals of the same sex. It is encountered among individuals of both sexes. Criminal law in the USSR, the socialist countries, and some bourgeois states has established a penalty for homosexuality (sodomy).

homosexuality

[¦hō·mə‚sek·shə′wal·əd·ē]

(psychology)

State of being sexually attracted to members of the same sex.

A form of homoerotism involving sexual interest without genital expression.

his first homosexual fulfillment at seventeen, adheres to his erotic life-style. [Am. Lit.: Gore Vidal The City and the Pillar]

Homosexuality

(dreams)

Sex in many different forms is frequently the topic of dreams. Sexual dreams don’t always have sexual meaning. They are at times about power, control, identity, and other non-sexual issues of life. If you are homosexual, dreams regarding this particular sexual orientation are not atypical. They are simply the extension of your thoughts and feelings in the form that is the most familiar and meaningful to you. If a heterosexual person is having a homosexual dream, it may have a variety of connotations. The interpretation of this dream, as with all others, is very personal and generalizations are difficult to make. This dream may be about loving yourself, especially if the other individual in your dream is a stranger. The dream may be about integrating ideas and attitudes, and in a few rare cases may be about sexual orientation.

Soon afterward, an array of Religious Right groups joined forces to publish full-page advertisements in national newspapers thanking Lott and others (such as football player Reggie White) for calling homosexuality a sin.

It is pertinent to mention that the decision has come a month after Kenya's High Court upheld its laws criminalising homosexuality. Homophobia is widely entrenched on the African continent, with homosexuality being outlawed in more than 30 countries.

The group said there was no evidence that therapy to alter sexual orientation worked, and asked health professionals to "rely only on science" when they express opinions or prescribe treatment for homosexuality.

In his preface and introduction, Pickett addresses some of the difficulties in putting together this volume, explaining in particular how he approached lesbian history, transgender issues, and the definition of homosexuality. He makes it clear that the scope of the work is homosexuality, while acknowledging that such an identity has not always existed as we understand it today): "[T] he topic of this history of homosexuality is very large in itself.

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